The White Octopus Hotel by Alexandra Bell
Journey to a magical hotel in the Swiss Alps, where two lost souls living in different centuries meet and discover if a second chance awaits them behind its doors.
“Have you travelled a long way?” she asked carefully..
A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Well, yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, you could say that. But it was worth the wait.”
London, 2015. When reclusive art appraiser Eve Shaw shakes the hand of a silver-haired gentleman in her office, the warmth of his palm sends a spark through her.
His name is Max Everly—curiously, the same name as Eve’s favorite composer, born one hundred sixteen years prior. And she has the sudden feeling that she’s held his hand before... but where, and when?
The White Octopus Hotel, 1935. In this belle époque building high in the snowy mountains, Eve and a young Max wander the winding halls, lost in time.
Each of them has been through the trenches—Eve through a family accident and Max on the battlefields of the Great War—but for an impossible moment, love and healing are just a room away... if only they have the courage to step through the door.
Time Period: WWI trenches/1930s/2015
Primary Location: Swiss Alps
Isola: Reese's Book Club: A Novel by Allegra Goodman
Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes a unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island.
Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never before needed.
Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.
Time Period: Mid-16th century (c. 1542–44)
Primary Location: Gulf of St. Lawrence (New France/Canada)
The Missing Pages by Alyson Richman
A ghost in a library. A story waiting to be told. The Missing Pages is a rich, lyrical novel that reminds us that books are as eternal as the soul.
1912: Harry Widener, a promising and passionate book collector, boards the Titanic holding tight to a priceless volume he’s just purchased in London. After catastrophe strikes the ship, Harry’s last known words are that he must return to his cabin to retrieve his latest treasure. Neither the young man nor the book are ever seen again. Honoring her son’s memory, Harry’s mother builds the Harry Widener Memorial Library at Harvard to house his extensive book collection and ensure his legacy.
Decades later, Violet Hutchins, a Harvard sophomore recovering from her own great loss, is working as a page at the Widener Library. When mysterious things begin happening at the library, Violet wonders if Harry Widener’s ghost is trying to communicate with her, seeking Violet to uncover a long-buried secret that the ardent young Harry took with him to the grave.
Time Period: 1912 & 1990s
Primary Location: Harvard (Cambridge, MA)
The Good Daughters by Brigitta Dale
A moving and vivid story of three suffragettes in London and the battle for equality that tests the strength of their will and the bonds of their friendship.
In 1912, three young women from wildly different backgrounds are bound together by their desire to have a say in their future.
Charlotte, disappointed to discover that college isn’t the key to the freedom she longed for, shocks her family when she moves to London and joins a group of suffragettes willing to upend social norms for the vote. Aristocratic Beatrice, with a law degree she legally can’t put into practice and a fiancé she’s not particularly excited to marry, escapes to London to spend her last months of unmarried life with the suffragettes, and falls deeply—and dangerously—into forbidden love.
Emily, the daughter of the warden of the infamous Holloway Jail, grieves her mother and saves her wages for a better life outside the prison’s walls. Her best chance at escaping the drudgery of her life is to stay out of trouble, but when the suffragettes land in her father’s cells, she must consider risking not only her family’s livelihood, but her own future.
With the dangerous stakes of the suffrage campaign becoming a fight for the women’s bodies and lives, they enter a treacherous world where the laws and justice system are stacked against them. They face violent protests, hunger strikes, and brutal forced feedings, and the women must decide how much they are willing to risk for their freedom and for each other.
Time Period: Early 20th century (suffrage era)
Primary Location: London
Love, Sex & Frankenstein by Caroline Lea
JAn evocative, haunting retelling of the summer that should have broken Mary Shelley, but instead inspired her to write her masterpiece.
Villa Diodati, Lake Geneva, 1816: the dark summer that birthed a monster.
Eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley has fled London with her lover, Percy Shelley, and her sister, Claire. Tormented by Shelley’s betrayals, haunted by the loss of their baby, and suspicious of her sister’s intentions, Mary seeks a refuge.
But Lord Byron’s villa, lying under ominous, ash-shrouded skies, feels more like a trap. When Byron suggests each guest write a supernatural tale, Mary is as drawn to the challenge as she is, unexpectedly, to Byron himself.
And so an idea begins to form in her mind . . . It spills out of her in thick, black ink. A thing given life by her imagination.
Day and night, it possesses her. Her heart, her desires.
But is she in control, or is it?
In this hauntingly evocative feminist retelling, Caroline Lea delves into the female rage, creative madness and steamy scandal that bore the world's most famous work of gothic fiction.
Time Period: 1816
Primary Location: Villa Diodati, Lake Geneva
The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes by Chanel Cleeton
London, 2024: American expat Margo Reynolds is renowned for her talent at sourcing rare antiques for her clients, but she’s never had a request quite like this one. She’s been hired to find a mysterious book published over a century ago. With a single copy left in existence, it has a storied past shrouded in secrecy—and her client isn’t the only person determined to procure it at any cost.
Havana, 1966: Librarian Pilar Castillo has devoted her life to books, and in the chaotic days following her husband’s unjust imprisonment by Fidel Castro, reading is her only source of solace. So when a neighbor fleeing Cuba asks her to return a valuable book to its rightful owner, Pilar will risk everything to protect the literary work entrusted to her care. It’s a dangerous mission that reveals to her the power of one book to change a life.
Boston, 1900: For Cuban school teacher and aspiring author Eva Fuentes, traveling from Havana to Harvard to study for the summer is the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s a whirlwind adventure that leaves her little time to write, but a moonlit encounter with an enigmatic stranger changes everything. The story that pours out of her is one of forbidden love, secrets, and lies… and though Eva cannot yet see it, the book will be a danger and salvation for the lives it touches.
Time Period: 20th century & present
Primary Location: Boston & London
The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown
Robert Langdon, esteemed professor of symbology, travels to Prague to attend a groundbreaking lecture by Katherine Solomon—a prominent noetic scientist with whom he has recently begun a relationship. Katherine is on the verge of publishing an explosive book that contains startling discoveries about the nature of human consciousness and threatens to disrupt centuries of established belief. But a brutal murder catapults the trip into chaos, and Katherine suddenly disappears along with her manuscript. Langdon finds himself targeted by a powerful organization and hunted by a chilling assailant sprung from Prague’s most ancient mythology. As the plot expands into London and New York, Langdon desperately searches for Katherine... and for answers. In a thrilling race through the dual worlds of futuristic science and mystical lore, he uncovers a shocking truth about a secret project that will forever change the way we think about the human mind.
Time Period: Present day
Primary Location: Prague
Boudicca’s Daughter by Elodie Harper
Boudicca—infamous warrior, queen of the British Iceni tribe, and mastermind of one of history’s greatest revolts. Her defeat spelled ruin for her people, yet still her name is enough to strike fear into Roman hearts.
But what of the woman who grew up in her shadow? The woman who has her mother's looks and cunning and her father’s druidic gifts, but a spirit all of her own? The woman whose desperate bid for survival will take her from Britain’s sacred marshlands to the glittering facades of Nero’s Roman Empire...
The narrative arc and emotional heart of the book is Solina's complex relationship with Rome, and what resistance means in the radically different world she finds herself in after her mother's fall. After she is taken to the Empire's capital by the ruthless Roman general Paulinus, she will have to decide what it truly means to be Boudicca's daughter.
Forced to fight. Determined to succeed. Meet Solina. Boudicca’s daughter.
Time Period: 60 CE
Primary Location: Britain
The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue
Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia.
Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.
From an author whose “writing is superb alchemy” (Audrey Niffenegger, New York Times bestselling author), The Paris Express is an evocative masterpiece that effortlessly captures the politics, glamour, chaos, and speed that marked the end of the 19th century.
Time Period: 1895
Primary Location: Paris (Montparnasse train)
Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine
Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie.
When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act—one that rouses Minnie’s spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests’ coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored.
With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind?
Time Period: 1860s (Civil War era)
Primary Location: Alabama, USA
The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso
Nuremberg, 1938: On the night of Kristallnacht, eleven-year-old Lisavet Levy is hidden by her father from approaching forces in a mysterious place called the time space, a library where all the memories of the past are stored inside of books. When her father doesn’t return for her, she becomes trapped, spending her adolescence walking through the memories of those who lived before. When she discovers that living timekeepers are entering the time space to destroy memories and maintain their preferred version of history, Lisavet sets about trying to salvage the past, creating her own book of lost memories. Until one day in 1949, when she meets an American timekeeper named Ernest Duquesne, who is intent on keeping her from her task. What ensues sets her on a course to change history and the time space itself forever.
Boston, 1965: Amelia Duquesne is mourning the death of her uncle and guardian, Ernest, when she’s approached by Moira, the enigmatic head of the CIA’s highly secretive Temporal Reconnaissance Program. Moira tells her about the existence of the time space—accessed only by specially designed watches whose intricate mechanisms have been lost to time—and enlists her help in recovering a strange book her uncle had once sought. But Amelia quickly realizes that the past—and the truth—are not as straightforward as Moira would like her to believe.
A sweeping, cinematic love story, this feat of imagination explores memory, time, and the lengths we will go to in order to protect the existence of those we love.
Time Period: 1938 & 1965
Primary Location: USA
My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende
In San Francisco in 1866, an Irish nun, abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman.
To pursue her passion for writing, she is willing to defy societal norms. At the age of seventeen, she begins to publish pulp fiction using a man’s pen name. When these fictional worlds can no longer satisfy her sense of adventure, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at The Daily Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan.
As she proves herself, her restlessness returns, until an opportunity arises to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. She seizes it, as does Eric, and while there, she meets her estranged father and delves into the violent confrontation in the country where her roots lie. As she and Eric discover love, the war escalates and Emilia finds herself in extreme danger, fearing for her life and questioning her identity and her destiny.
A riveting tale of self-discovery and love from one of the most masterful storytellers of our time, My Name Is Emilia del Valle introduces a character who will never let hold of your heart.
Time Period: Late 19th century
Primary Location: Chile & San Francisco
Canticle by Janet Rich Edwards
Aleys is sixteen years old and unusual: stubborn, bright, and prone to religious visions. She and her only friend, Finn, a young scholar, have been learning Latin together in secret—but just as she thinks their connection might become something more, everything unravels. When her father promises her in marriage to a merchant she doesn’t love, she runs away from home, finding shelter among the beguines, a fiercely independent community of religious women who refuse to answer to the Church.
Among these hardworking and strong-willed women, Aleys glimpses for the first time the joys of belonging: a life of song, meaning, and friendship in the markets and along the canals of Bruges. But forces both mystical and political are at work. Illegal translations of scripture, the women’s independence, and a sudden rash of miracles all draw the attention of an ambitious bishop—and bring Aleys and those around her into ever-increasing danger, a danger that will push Aleys to a new understanding of love and sacrifice.
Grounded in the little-told stories of medieval women—mystics, saints, anchoresses, and beguines—and introducing a major new talent, Canticle is a luminous work of historical fiction, vividly evoking a world on the verge of transformation.
Time Period: 13th century
Primary Location: Bruges, Belgium
The Porcelain Menagerie by Jillian Forsberg
In a world where ambition is as fragile as porcelain, two lives are shaped by a king's dangerous obsessions.
In 18th-century Dresden, the dangerous whims of King Augustus the Strong shape the court and the lives of those held captive, both people and animals.
Johann Kändler, a talented young artist, is drawn into the world of King Augustus the Strong. The king's relentless desire for a lifelike porcelain menagerie could make or break Johann's future. As Johann works to meet the king's impossible demands, he finds unexpected allies in former royal mistress Maria and her daughter Katharina. Johann's art might secure his future-or ruin it if he fails to satisfy the king.
Decades earlier, another story unfolds. Fatima, a Turkish handmaiden, is chosen to replace Augustus's discarded mistress. As she tries to create a menagerie of exotic animals and navigate the intrigues of an unpredictable court, Fatima must learn to survive in a world that values beauty and power above all. She must fight to keep her identity and unlock her own cage in the king's dangerous realm.
Two timelines, bound by a king's obsessions: art and survival intertwine as Johann and Fatima navigate the king's unpredictable demands and the deadly allure of court life, where ambition can be as fragile as porcelain.
Time Period: 18th century
Primary Location: Dresden, Germany
Out of Time (Time Police Book 6) by Jodi Taylor
The Time Police are accustomed to jumping to the past. This time, however, the past has come to them.
What connects a dead dinosaur with Romulus the founder of Rome, a shocking cover-up at TPHQ and a plot to murder the Princes in the Tower?
The Time Police are determined to find out, helped - and occasionally hindered - by a wayward member of St Mary's and a recently reunited Team 236. Each in their own unique way, obviously.
As if all that wasn't enough - something somewhere in the Timeline is wrong. Very, very wrong. What is the Time Map trying to tell them?
Can the Time Police find the answers before Time runs out?
Time Period: Various historical eras
Primary Location: Various locales
Venetian Vespers by John Banville
Everything was a puzzle, everything a trap set to mystify and hinder me...
1899. As the new century approaches, struggling English writer Evelyn Dolman—a hack, by his own description—marries Laura Rensselaer, daughter of an American oil tycoon. Evelyn anticipates that he and Laura will inherit a substantial fortune and lead a comfortable, settled life. But his hopes are dashed when a mysterious rift between Laura and her father, just before the patriarch’s death, leads to her disinheritance.
The unhappy newlyweds travel to Venice to celebrate the New Year at the Palazzo Dioscuri, ancestral home of the charming but treacherous Count Barbarigo. From their first moments at the palazzo, a series of seemingly otherworldly occurrences begin to accumulate. Evelyn’s already frayed nerves disintegrate further: could it be the mist blanketing the floating city, or is he losing his mind?
Venetian Vespers is a haunting, atmospheric noir with a surprise around every cobwebbed corner: a fitting return by one of the most sophisticated stylists of our time.
Time Period: 20th century
Primary Location: Venice
The Astral Library by Kate Quinn
Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives...inside their favorite books.
The Librarian takes a dazzled Alix under her wing, but before she can escape into the pages of her new life, a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped protect. Aided by a dashing costume-shop owner, Alix and the Librarian flee through the Regency drawing rooms of Jane Austen to the back alleys of Sherlock Holmes and the champagne-soaked parties of The Great Gatsby as danger draws inexorably closer. But who does their enemy really wish to destroy—Alix, the Librarian, or the Library itself?
Time Period: Present day
Primary Location: Boston
Circle of Days by Ken Follett
A FLINT MINER WITH A GIFT
Seft, a talented flint miner, walks the Great Plain in the high summer heat, to witness the rituals that signal the start of a new year. He is there to trade his stone at the Midsummer Fair, and to find Neen, the girl he loves. Her family lives in prosperity and offer Seft an escape from his brutish father and brothers within their herder community.
A PRIESTESS WHO BELIEVES THE IMPOSSIBLE
Joia, Neen’s sister, is a priestess with a vision and an unmatched ability to lead. As a child, she watches the Midsummer ceremony, enthralled, and dreams of a miraculous new monument, raised from the biggest stones in the world. But trouble is brewing among the hills and woodlands of the Great Plain.
A MONUMENT THAT WILL DEFINE A CIVILIZATION
Joia’s vision of a great stone circle, assembled by the divided tribes of the Plain, will inspire Seft and become their life’s work. But as drought ravages the earth, mistrust grows between the herders, farmers and woodlanders—and an act of savage violence leads to open warfare...
Truly ambitious in scope, Circle of Days invites you to join master storyteller Ken Follett in exploring one of the greatest mysteries of our age: Stonehenge.
Time Period: Prehistoric Britain, time of Stonehenge construction
Primary Location: Wiltshire, England
Lady Like by Mackenzi Lee
Harriet Lockhart never planned to marry. She has spent her life defying expectations, playing male roles on London’s seediest stages, and doing whatever she pleases. When Harry is contacted by her hitherto anonymous father, she finds herself at risk of losing the trust fund that’s subsidized her lifestyle—unless she begins to lead a more respectable life, starting with finding a husband.
Emily Sergeant, the picture of modesty, has only ever wanted to marry. And were it not for one mistake in her youth that rendered her a social pariah, she would be appropriately betrothed. Instead, she’s due to wed the only willing—and most abominable—man in her small town.
Desperate for an alternative, Emily flees to London to snag a less lecherous fiancé.
Worlds collide, dramatically and hilariously, when both women decide on the very same duke as their best possible chance at a tolerable husband and a secure future. A tongue-in-cheek romp through London’s summer season, from balls to brothels, horseraces to duels, Harry and Emily compete for the duke’s favor, only to find their true hearts’ desires may be more compatible than they could have ever predicted.
Time Period: Regency era
Primary Location: London
The Secret Book Society by Madeline Martin
You are cordially invited to the Secret Book Society…
London, 1895: Trapped by oppressive marriages and societal expectations, three women receive a mysterious invitation to an afternoon tea at the home of the reclusive Lady Duxbury. Beneath the genteel facade of the gathering lies a secret book club—a sanctuary where they can discover freedom, sisterhood, and the courage to rewrite their stories.
Eleanor Clarke, a devoted mother suffocating under the tyranny of her husband. Rose Wharton, a transplanted American dollar princess struggling to fit the mold of an aristocratic wife. Lavinia Cavendish, an artistic young woman haunted by a dangerous family secret. All are drawn to the enigmatic Lady Duxbury, a thrice-widowed countess whose husbands’ untimely deaths have sparked whispers of murder.
As the women form deep, heartwarming friendships, they uncover secrets about their marriages, their pasts, and the risks they face. Their courage is their only weapon in the oppressive world that has kept them silent, but when secrets are deadly, one misstep could cost them everything.
Time Period: 1895
Primary Location: London
Daughter of Egypt by Marie Benedict
In the 1920s, archeologist Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon of Highclere Castle made headlines around the world with the discovery of the treasure-filled tomb of the boy Pharaoh Tutankhamun. But behind it all stood Lady Evelyn Herbert―daughter of Lord Carnarvon―whose daring spirit and relentless curiosity made the momentous find possible.
Nearly 3,000 years earlier, another woman defied the expectations of her time: Hatshepsut, Egypt’s lost pharaoh. Her reign was bold, visionary―and nearly erased from history.
When Evelyn becomes obsessed with finding Hatshepsut’s secret tomb, she risks everything to uncover the truth about her reign and keep valued artifacts in Egypt, their rightful home. But as danger closes in and political tensions rise, she must make an impossible choice: protect her father’s legacy―or forge her own.
Propelled by high adventure and deadly intrigue, Daughter of Egypt is the story of two ambitious women who lived centuries apart. Both were forced to hide who they were during their lifetimes, yet ultimately changed history forever.
Time Period: Ancient Egypt & present-day
Primary Location: Egypt
Amity by Nathan Harris
New Orleans, 1866. The Civil War might be over, but formerly enslaved Coleman and June have yet to find the freedom they’ve been promised. Two years ago, the siblings were separated when their old master, Mr. Harper, took June away to Mexico, where he hoped to escape the new reality of the postbellum South. Coleman stayed behind in Louisiana to serve the Harper family, clinging to the hope that one day June would return.
When an unexpected letter from Mr. Harper arrives, summoning Coleman to Mexico, Coleman thinks that finally his prayers have been answered. What Coleman cannot know is the tangled truth of June’s tribulations under Mr. Harper out on the frontier. And when disaster strikes Coleman’s journey, he is forced on the run with Mr. Harper's daughter, Florence. Together, they venture into the Mexican desert to find June, all the while evading two crooked brothers who'll stop at nothing to capture Coleman and Florence and collect the money they're owed. As Coleman and June separately navigate a perilous, parched landscape, the siblings learn quickly that freedom isn't always given—sometimes, it must be taken by force.
As in his New York Times bestselling debut The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris delves into the critical years of the Civil War’s aftermath to deliver an intimate and epic tale of what freedom means in a society still determined to return its Black citizens to bondage. Populated with unforgettable characters, Amity is a vital addition to the literature of emancipation.
Time Period: 1866–1868
Primary Location: Louisiana & Mexico borderlands
The Boleyn Traitor by Philippa Gregory
Jane Boleyn watches from the shadows of the Tudor court, where secrets are currency, every choice is dangerous, and even the faintest whisper can seal the fate of queens.
For Jane, survival demands playing every role required of her: a loving wife who conceals her doubts, a devoted sister to Anne Boleyn at the height of her power, and an obedient spy who carefully wields her words. But in a court ruled by ambition and a tyrant’s sword, Jane must rely on her sharp wit and skillful maneuvering to outthink those around her, knowing that one wrong move could cost her everything.
Philippa Gregory masterfully shines a spotlight on the untold story of Jane Boleyn, peeling back the myths to reveal a complex portrait of a woman who dared to survive at any cost. Perfect for fans of thrilling historical drama and readers captivated by the intrigue of the Tudor period, Boleyn Traitor is a must-read.
Time Period: 1530s
Primary Location: Tudor Court, England
The Zorg by Siddharth Kara
In late October 1780, a slave ship set sail from the Netherlands, bound for Africa’s Windward and Gold Coasts, where it would take on its human cargo. The Zorg (a Dutch word meaning “care”) was one of thousands of such ships, but the harrowing events that ensued on its doomed journey were unique.
After reaching Africa, the Zorg was captured by a privateer and came under British command. With a new captain and crew, the ship was crammed with 442 slaves and departed in 1781 for Jamaica. But a series of unpredictable weather events and mistakes in navigation left the ship drastically off course and running out of water. So a proposition was put forth: Save the crew and the most valuable of the slaves―by throwing dozens of people, starting with women and children, overboard.
What followed was a fascinating legal drama in England’s highest court that turned the brutal calculus of slavery into front-page news. The case of the Zorg catapulted the nascent anti-slavery movement from a minor evangelical cause to one of the most consequential moral campaigns in history―sparking the abolitionist movement in both England and the young United States
Siddharth Kara utilizes primary-source research, gripping storytelling, and painstaking investigation to uncover the Zorg’s journey, the lives and fates of the slaves on board, and the mysterious identity of the abolitionist who finally revealed the truth of what happened on the ship.
Time Period: 1781 (Middle Passage)
Primary Location: Atlantic Ocean
House of Two Pharaohs by Wilbur Smith
Since becoming Nomarc, Piay has thrown himself into pulling the city of Memphis back from the brink. The once starving inhabitants have been fed, a new school for Royal Princes and the sons of aristocrats has been established, and Piay has been recovering the many riches looted by the Hyksos. But when the heavily-guarded vault is found locked with the body of a murdered scribe inside - the mark of Anubis, god of death scrawled in his own blood - panic sweeps the city. Only the wisest man in all Egypt can solve this mystery: Piay's mentor, the great Mage Taita.
To Taita's reckoning the culprit can only be one person: a new enemy known to be the wisest and cleverest in the Lower Kingdom, obsessed with Egypt's history and grandeur. For many years, this person worked to undermine the Hyksos and since then their reputation as a criminal mastermind has spread across the Lower Kingdom in awed whispers.
As Taita works to track down the new and dangerous threat, his enemy has another plan: to draw Taita in and ultimately destroy him so they can become the true guide of Egypt's fortunes - the Dark Pharaoh.
Time Period: Ancient Egypt
Primary Location: Egypt
When Einstein Met Kafka: Jewish Contributions to the Modern World by Diego Moldes
A cultural history tracing Jewish influence on modernity through science, arts, and philosophy. Moldes uses Einstein and Kafka as symbolic figures to explore genius, exile, and creativity. The book maps global contributions that reshaped the modern world.
Time Period: 19th–21st centuries
Primary Location: Global (emphasis on European centers like Prague)
Dark Renaissance by Stephen Greenblatt
In repressive Elizabethan England, artists are frightened into dull conventionality; foreigners are suspect; popular entertainment largely consists of coarse spectacles, animal fights, and hangings.
Into this crude world of government censorship and religious authoritarianism comes an ambitious cobbler’s son from Canterbury with a daring desire to be known―and an uncanny ear for Latin poetry. A torment for most schoolboys, yet for a few, like Christopher Marlowe, a secret portal to beauty, visionary imagination, transgressive desire, and dangerous skepticism.
What Marlowe seizes in his rare opportunity for a classical education, and what he does with it, brings about a spectacular explosion of English literature, language, and culture. His astonishing literary success will, in turn, nourish the talent of a collaborator and rival, William Shakespeare.
Dark Renaissance illuminates both Marlowe’s times and the origins and significance of his work―from his erotic translations of Ovid to his portrayal of unfettered ambition in a triumphant Tamburlaine to Doctor Faustus, his unforgettable masterpiece about making a pact with the devil in exchange for knowledge. Introducing us to Marlowe’s transgressive genius in the form of a thrilling page-turner, Stephen Greenblatt brings a penetrating understanding of the literary work to reveal the inner world of the author, bringing to life a homosexual atheist who was tormented by his own compromises, who refused to toe the party line, and who was murdered just when he had found love. Meanwhile, he explores how the people Marlowe knew, and the transformations they wrought, gave birth to the economic, scientific, and cultural power of the modern world including Faustian bargains with which we reckon still.
Time Period: 1580s
Primary Location: England
